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Future of NASA's Manned Spaceflight Looks Bleak
coondoggie writes "Things don't look good for NASA when the report outlining its future begins: 'The US human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. [NASA] is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science. Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations.' Today the Augustine Commission handed to the White House the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee summary report, after months of expert review and testimony. Many observers expected a bleak report, but ultimately the future of US manned space flight will hinge on how the report's conclusions are interpreted. Keep in mind too that NASA has spent almost $8 billion of a planned $40 billion to develop systems for a return to the Moon."
... fund a manned space program when you blow all your resources on worthless, unnecessary wars?
Why is it we can afford a f***ing trillion dollars on the f***ing wars, and not put together a credible space program?
I guess there's no profit in it, and our state religion won't allow that. That's why we're not only not going to have a manned space program. It's why we're fucked as a nation in general.
It's just mind-boggling, but there it is.
Yeah. And, when NASA spent all the money on the X-33 they ended up with nothing to show for it.
Post-Apollo, NASA has a poor track record of developing new launch systems. I'm certain there are many bright and dedicated engineers at NASA, but as a collective organization, NASA just sucks at developing new launch systems.
I propose we take the remaining $32 billion that NASA hasn't spent yet, and deposit it in a bank somewhere. The first American company that lands human beings on the moon, keeps them there for one day, and returns them to Earth can collect $20 billion. The second company that does this can collect $10 billion. The third can have the last $2 billion.
No money will be paid for designs or plans, no matter how sincere. Only results will be paid.
It would be even better still if there were bounties for a useful space station (with fuel tanks and other infrastructure) to encourage solving the problem in a long-term way, rather than an Apollo-style pure race to the moon. These bounties should all be tax-free, of course.
I am 100% confident that bounties like this would result in America developing manned spaceflight capability. If we keep giving money to NASA bureaucrats to spread around to the military-industrial complex, I am less than 100% confident.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The whole "flexible path" thing is gaining traction, but its basically just a nice way of saying don't go anywhere, or stay there
I don't really agree with that. Putting an ISS at a Lagrange Point would be far more stable and a 100x better long-term investment than putting an ISS in LEO.
Since an ISS at LEO will require *constant* re-boosting to keep its altitude (its orbit naturally decays about 20km lower every month and fuel needs to constantly be ferried up to keep it from falling down), but an ISS at a Lagrange Point would require trivial stationkeeping.
Therefore, an LP base makes more sense than a LEO base. Now, one could say that a Moon base makes more sense because it has raw materials available, but that is ignoring all the Near-Earth Asteroids, which could be reached from an LP at trivial fuel amounts. You can mine the NEOs just as well as you can mine the Moon, thus building a nifty base at an LP that would serve as a great staging ground for humans in space. No gravity well to descend into or try to get out of.
The #1 thing humanity should build is a mining/smelting/shipyard at a Lagrange Point. Before a moonbase, before anything else, really.
And Flexible Path accommodates those kinds of goals.
According to WallStats, NASA's funding for 2010 is $18.7 billion. According to The New York Times, the amount of bailout funds committed by the U.S. Government to Bear Stearns and AIG (both of which are fraudulent companies) is $82 billion. That is 4.4 times the amount of funding that NASA is receiving next year. If the manned space program is canceled, let it be known that it was due to debacles such as this.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
rename the rocket to "planetary missile testing platform" and call the space program the strategic defense initiative. Or you can go one step further and rename NASA to Department of Homeworld Security.
Ok, not to be whiny, but I didn't like this particular summary, as it mentions the panel's conclusion that NASA's current path is unworkable, but doesn't make any mention of the alternative paths forwarded presented by the Committee (and discussed in the article). Here's an alternative summary, with some links to the actual report summary (which I suspect none of the commenters so far have actually read):
A summary of the Augustine Committee's upcoming report on the future of US spaceflight has been submitted to the White House and NASA, and made available to the public. The committee's analysis found that NASA's current plans for a human lunar return by 2020 are unworkable, with NASA's status quo not likely to place them on the moon 'until well into the 2030s, if ever'. Raising NASA's budget by $3B/year opens two primary options: 'Moon First' with a lunar return and possible base-building starting in the mid-2020s, or 'Flexible Path,' which would initially focus on building an in-space architecture for supporting progressive exploration, starting with Lagrange points and Near-Earth Objects (asteroids and comets) in the early 2020s, and exploring the moons of Mars or Earth in the mid-2020s. Options for a heavy-lift launcher were also outlined: NASA's current plans for an Ares V, a less costly 'directly Shuttle-derived' vehicle, or the least costly (but politically most difficult) 'new way of doing business' of purchasing launches on an upgraded EELV. Other key findings are that the ISS should be extended to 2020, that developing in-space refueling would benefit all of NASA's options, that NASA should make use of commercial crew transportation, that NASA should revive its space technology development program (which had largely stagnated in past decades), and that while Mars should be the ultimate destination for human exploration, it is not the best first destination. The White House and NASA will review the report and announce NASA's forward path in early October.
If only NASA was too big to fail......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.